Hurricane Matthew pounded NASA and SpaceX buildings in Florida — here's what some of the damage looks like
When Hurricane Matthew pounded Florida's eastern coast on Friday, it roughed up a few important NASA and SpaceX buildings.
NASA on Monday closed Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to survey the storm's damage.
"Since safety is our utmost concern, teams of inspectors are going from building-to-building," NASA employee Steven Siceloff wrote in a blog post on October 8.
The storm also battered some of the facilities SpaceX uses in Cape Canaveral.
An industry source who works in area (but did not wish to be named due security concerns) told Business Insider that the Solid Motor Assembly Building (SMAB), which SpaceX now uses for launch preparations, had about "50%" of its metal sheeting torn off and "holes the size of a school bus."
When asked about the storm's damage and impact to its already delayed launch schedule, a SpaceX representative told Business Insider in an email: "Hurricane Matthew caused some damage to the exterior of SpaceX's payload processing facility at Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The company has a ready and fully capable back-up for processing payloads at its SLC-40 hangar annex building."
SpaceX also said launchpad 39A — which the company plans to use for future missions to the space station and perhaps Mars — suffered "no damage."
NASA also released the following photos taken during aerial and on-the-ground damage surveys. Luckily, most of the infrastructure there seems to be intact.
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